Popular Arduino devices

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  • I think a lot of us have a history of building Arduino-based projects, so support for a lot of the common devices would be smart. I'm thinking of the popular Adafruit, Sparkfun, etc. breakout boards and even shields. Off the top of my head, this would include:

    TI CC3000 wifi
    RN-41 and RN-42 bluetooth
    HC-05 and HC-06 bluetooth
    Adafruit neopixel
    PN532 RFID/NFC
    SM130 RFID
    ID-20LA, ID-12LA, ID-3LA RFID
    ADXL??? accelerometers
    L3GD20 and L3G4200D gyros
    ITG-3200 gyro

    Also, since the STM32 discovery boards are a cheap way to play with these chips, being able to interface with their built-in devices would be nice:

    • LIS302DL or LIS3DSH ST MEMS 3-axis accelerometer
    • MP45DT02, ST MEMS audio sensor, omni-directional digital microphone
    • CS43L22, audio DAC with integrated class D speaker driver

    Sorry if some of these are already supported. I've just skimmed the surface of what's available ;)

  • Sorry, I later remembered that the Espruino board uses the CC3000, and sure enough...it works. I would like to figure out Smart Config with it, though, but I'm probably just missing something.

    Also LIS302DL is already supported and works very well on my F4!

    I'm working on a project using the ID-?? RFID, so I'll probably be building out a library for them. What's the best way to add a module lib? Can we do something like Tessel does with npm packages? It would be really nice to just 'npm install pn532' and get going.

  • We're still adding CC3000 support - so some code is in there but it's not working yet.

    Espruino does have modules - you put them on the SD card in the node_modules dir and they work like this:

    https://github.com/espruino/EspruinoDocsĀ­/blob/master/devices/DS18B20.js

    If you do make some modules, please issue me with a pull request for EspruinoDocs - I'm trying to build up the library. The API may change slightly soon so that we can be relatively compatible with Firmata + Tessel and use their drivers (hence the use of the 'hardware' module).

    There's also going to be something added to the Web UI that will allow you to do something like 'npm install' even if your board isn't itself connected to the net.

  • Hey, Gordon. I haven't had time yet to test the CC3000 or npm, but I'm now thinking that I'm missing something, since the Kickstarter page says that CC3000 support is complete.

  • Hi, no - it just says that when our backers get the board, it'll have CC3000 support - same for NPM, tutorials etc.

    Surprisingly it takes time to implement these things - they weren't done already or they wouldn't have been stretch goals.

    I probably should have done like everyone else and released source 'when it was done'.

  • Sorry, Gordon. Hope that didn't sound like complaining or anything. Just trying to understand where things were at. And if you're open to help from others, it may not be so bad to have released early. I don't think I'm alone in being excited about this project and willing to help where I can.

  • I didn't mean to sound so aggressive there - the issue is that I'm now currently spending more time answering questions about Espruino's source than I am improving Espruino - which IMO is not good for Espruino's KickStarter backers. When I actually do get time to make a change (like drawVectorString) then I have 'bug reports' posted on GitHub and the forums from people who haven't even bothered to check the Changelog or up to date documentation (let alone the source).

    Contributions are welcome though, and some really good things are coming out of it - for instance Eyal has already found a few issues and contributed fixes for them.

    Personally I'd really love some constructive contributions (bug reports with patches), patches to implement more JS built-in functionality, simple projects with write-ups, etc.

    It's just a bit frustrating to be inundated with random bug reports where someone has made no attempt to fix the problem - it's easy to pick holes, and while it's good to document the problems I feel that it's not really helping much at the moment unless the reports come from someone using Espruino properly (rather than just creating contrived cases where it might not work as they expect).

  • Gordon,

    You have to look at that frustration positively. It's not "drat someone is digging up more work to do" it's "great there is another user out there checking out Espruino." Consider it a sign of the huge success you have had with the Espruino and the Kick Starter campaign. Think how miserable you would be now if nobody had turned up.

    Clearly many don't have the skill or the time to fix bugs they have found, even if they intend to be serious Espruino users. It's still better to have people trying things and reporting bugs than not.

    I do appreciate that you must be somewhat overwhelmed just now. Such is the burden of success:)

  • First, judging from the new comment in the code and this discussion, I just want to be absolutely clear that the intent of my question was nowhere near suggesting that you were lying or trying to nitpick the process. I just was surprised when I saw that it said complete and was curious. I completely understand your frustration and apologize for contributing to it.

    I'm a bit slow to get into the code, as I'm trying to finish a couple of other projects before I start spending more time with Espruino. But I'll get to it soon and will happily make tutorials and help with bugs/features where I can.

  • Bluecamel - new code comment? Sorry, I realise that you weren't having a go. Complete was probably the wrong word (I meant that the stretch goal had been reached)

    Thanks for the comments - I'll try and get better at this. I guess it is the nature of things that generally I don't hear anything back when it works properly - I guess I should be happy that the only things being reported are really pretty minor :)

    I guess given the downloads I'd hoped that there would be more people going 'look what I made!' though, so that's a bit sad for me. Hopefully when the board is released with some better docs that will happen more.

  • That's the spirit.

    The silent majority, and you have nearly 1700 of them out there, will be, well, silent.

    It's early days, the 'look what I made!' will come. Just now to try out Espruino you have to get a board and figure out how to install it. That is not trivial for the intended audience of JavaScript on an MCU.

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Popular Arduino devices

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